You Don't Have to Know
by lesbianpapyrus
Summary: Toriel isn't sure who she is anymore. Her girlfriend is here to help. #4 of a series of Undertale ship drabbles for LGBT Pride Month. (Toriel x Snowdin Shopkeeper. They didn't have the latter as a character so I thought I'd make that clear here.)


Toriel had been oddly silent today.

She'd seemed lost in thought since last evening. She'd barely said good night or good morning to her girlfriend, Lulu, and had spent the day absentmindedly cleaning house while Frisk played with their friends outside. Right now she was rinsing off dishes to put them in the dishwasher. Except she'd already rinsed off this particular batch. But Toriel didn't even seem to notice.

Lulu was worried.

"Tori… is something wrong?" she asked gently. "You know you can tell me anything, right?"

Toriel took a while to answer. She set the dishes down slowly, turned and leaned against the counter, closing her eyes and rubbing one of her temples. "I… I saw Asgore at the grocery store last night."

Lulu was immediately on the alert. "Did he bother you? Try to get you to come back to him or something?"

"Oh, no, not at all." Toriel shook her head. "We both just… said hello, asked how the other was doing, and parted ways. It was a little awkward, maybe, but he didn't bother me at all." With an exhausted sigh, she slid down the cabinet and sat on the floor.

Lulu dropped down next to her. "Then what is bothering you, sweetie?" she said, taking Toriel's large paw in her small one.

"I guess I just… am not sure how I feel about him anymore. Or how I feel about anyone, really," Toriel admitted hesitantly. When Lulu stayed quiet to let her explain, she continued, "I mean, I know I certainly do not find him attractive anymore. Not after what he's done. So, I guess I _am_ sure about that. I'm—confused. Was my love for him ever really _real_ if I were able to feel contempt for him so quickly?

"And seeing him raised up so many other questions in my mind—so many years ago, Lulu, I _never_ would have thought I'd date another woman. Not that I was _opposed_ to it, I just never considered it. And now—I feel as though no man would ever be attractive enough, in any sense, for me to love romantically. And taking all that into consideration—I don't know who I am, what I can call myself." She paused and looked straight at Lulu. "I mean—you are a lesbian, are you not? I feel as if that could be the only label for me, but I don't know—can I really call myself that if I have dated men before? If I married a man? If I had a child with him? If I really _did_ love him at that time? I—I just don't know. And I don't know why it's bothering me so much, I—" Toriel broke off as she started to sob.

Lulu wiped her tears away. "Oh, Tori, honey, please don't cry," she soothed. "I know it's hard to figure yourself out, I struggled for years before I finally realized." She searched for the right words to say. "First off, I'm going to tell you that you don't need to call yourself anything, if you don't want to and if nothing really fits. It's okay to just love who you love, go with the flow, you know?" She smiled. "But—I know how much it helps to find people who are like you, who share your experiences. And so I say if you want to call yourself a lesbian, you go for it! It doesn't matter if you might've loved a man a long time ago, or if you _think_ you did, or whatever. What matters is how you feel now. And if you feel that you are a woman who loves only women, then that _is_ what you are."

Toriel smiled through her tears and embraced the small purple rabbit monster in a big fuzzy hug. "Thank you, Lu. I—I'm probably going to have to think about this more, but I believe you've helped a good deal just now."

"Oh, of course you're gonna have to think about it more. But that's okay. I'll always be here to help," Lulu said, patting Toriel's back.

"You know, actually, there is _one_ thing I am sure about." Toriel pulled back slightly, looking a little dreamily into Lulu's eyes.

"What's that?"

Toriel kissed her cheek. "That I love you."


End file.
